Home Secretary decides to proscribe Palestine Action after ‘disgraceful attack'
Yvette Cooper confirmed the move after Palestine Action vandalised two planes inside RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on Friday.
The incident is being investigated by counter-terror police.
The ban under terror laws will make it a criminal offence to belong to or support the group, and will be punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
A Palestine Action spokesperson said they would be seeking a legal challenge to the 'unhinged reaction'.
A draft order will be laid in Parliament next Monday, and if approved after debates by MPs and peers, the ban could come into force by Friday.
Ms Cooper said in a written ministerial statement: 'The disgraceful attack on Brize Norton in the early hours of the morning on Friday 20 June is the latest in a long history of unacceptable criminal damage committed by Palestine Action.
'The UK's defence enterprise is vital to the nation's national security and this Government will not tolerate those that put that security at risk.'
Palestine Action posted footage online showing two people inside the base at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on Friday morning.
The clip shows one person riding an electric scooter up to an Airbus Voyager air-to-air refuelling tanker and appearing to spray paint into its jet engine.
Armed forces minister Luke Pollard said the act was 'epically stupid' and a 'direct attack on our national security'.
Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge went further, calling it 'sabotage'.
The group has staged a series of demonstrations in recent months, including spraying the London offices of Allianz Insurance with red paint over its alleged links to Israeli defence company Elbit, and vandalising US President Donald Trump's Turnberry golf course in South Ayrshire.
Ms Cooper said Palestine Action's activity has increased since 2024 and its methods have become 'more aggressive', with its members showing 'willingness to use violence'.
She named three attacks at Thales defence factory in Glasgow in 2022, Instro Precision in Kent and Elbit Systems UK in Bristol in 2024, as causing damage costing millions of pounds.
Ms Cooper said the ban will allow law enforcement to 'effectively disrupt the escalating actions of this serious group', describing a further vandalism attack on a Jewish-owned business last month that Palestine Action claimed responsibility for as 'clearly intimidatory and unacceptable'.
'Proscription represents a legitimate response to the threat posed by Palestine Action,' she said.
'Its activities meet the threshold set out in the statutory tests established under the Terrorism Act 2000.'
A spokesperson for Palestine Action said the Home Secretary's statement 'makes a series of categorically false claims' and the group has instructed lawyers to pursue 'all avenues for legal challenge'.
They added: 'This is an unhinged reaction to an action spraying paint in protest at the UK Government arming Israel's slaughter of the Palestinian people.
'We are teachers, nurses, students and parents who take part in actions disrupting the private companies who are arming Israel's genocide, by spray painting or entering their factory premises.
'It is plainly preposterous to rank us with terrorist groups like Isis, National Action and Boko Haram.'
Earlier on Monday, Baroness Shami Chakrabarti told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that plans to ban the group would mark a very serious step and that this 'may be an escalation too far'.
The announcement comes as police made 13 arrests after protesters clashed with police at a demonstration in support of Palestine Action in central London on Monday.
The protest had initially been planned to take place outside the Houses of Parliament, but the location was changed early on Monday morning after the Metropolitan Police imposed an exclusion zone.
The Met Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said he was 'shocked' by the planned protest and described Palestine Action as an 'organised extremist criminal group'.
Asked about Sir Mark's comments, Palestine Action spokesperson Max Geller said on Monday: 'It's really troubling that the head of the Met would pre-empt the Government and ban us from protesting (at the Houses of Parliament).
'It's a frustrating turn for democracy in this country.'
The Home Secretary added the proscription is specific to Palestine Action and does not affect lawful protest groups or others campaigning on issues around Palestine and the Middle East.
'It is vitally important that those seeking to protest peacefully, including pro-Palestinian groups, those opposing the actions of the Israeli government, and those demanding changes in the UK's foreign policy, can continue to do so,' she said.
The Home Secretary has the power to proscribe an organisation under the Terrorism Act of 2000 if she believes it is 'concerned in terrorism'.
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